The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1887-07-21
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
The Weekly Discourse of the Great
Brooklyn Preacher

TEXT; The time of my departure Is al
hond,-II, Timothy w., G.
The way out of this world is so blocked up
with coffin and hearse, and undertaker's
spade and screwdriyer, that the Christian can
hardly think as he ought of the most cheerful
passage in all his history. We hang black
instead of white over the place where the
good man gets his last victory. We stand
weeping over a heap of chains which the freed
soul has shaken Off, and we say: Poor
mani What pity it was he had to come
TO this" Come to what! BY the time
the people have assembled at the obsequies
the man has been three days so happy
that all the joy of earth accumulated
would he wretchedness beside it, and he
might better weep over you because you
have to stay, than you weep over him be-
cause he has to go, 1t is fortunate
thing that good man does not have to wait
10 see his own obsequies, they would be so
ciscordant with his own experience If the
Israeltes should go back to Egypt and mourn
over the brick kilns they once left, they would
not be any more silly than that Christian
who should forSake heaven and come down
and mourn because he had to leave this
world Our ideas of the Christians death
are morbid and sickly. We look upon it as a
dark hole in which man stumbles when his
breath gives out. This whole subject is odor-
GUS with varnish and disinfectants instead of
being sweet with mignonette. Paul in my
text, takes that great clod of word, death"
and throws it away, and speaks of his "de-
parture"-a beautiful, bright, suggestive
word, descriptive of every Christians re-
lease.
Now, departure implies starting place
and place of destination. When Paul left
this world what was the starting points 1t
was scene of great physical distress 1t was
the Tullianum, the lower dungeon of the
Mamertine prison. The top dungeon was
bad enough, it having no means of ingress or
egress but through an opening in the top.
Through that the prisoner was lowered, and
through that came all the food and air and
light received. 1t was terrible place, that
upper dungeon; but the Tullianum was
the lower dungeon, and that was still
more wretched, the only light and the
only air coming through the roof, and that
roof the floor OF the upper dungeon. That
was Pauls last earthly residence 1t was a
dungeon just six feet and a halfhigh. 1t was
a doleful place. 1t had the chill of long
centuries of dampness. 1t was filthy with the
long Incarceration of miserable wretches. 1t
was there that Paul spent his last days on
earth, and it is there that l see him to-day,
in the fearful dungeon, shivering blue with
the cold, waiting for that old overcoat which
he had sent for up to Troas, and which they
had not yet sent down, notwithstanding he
had written for it,
If some skilful surgeon should go into tina,
find out what are the prospects of Paurs liv-
ing through the rough imprisonment. In the
first place, he is an old man, only two years
short of seventy. At that very time when he
most needs the warmth and the sunlight, and
the fresh air, he is shut out from the sun.
What are those scars on his ankles? Why,
those were gotten when he was fast, his feet
in the stocks. Every time he turned, the
flesh on mis- ankles started. What are
those scars on his back! You know he
was whipped five times, each time getting
thirty-nine strokes-195 bruises on the
back count themD made by the Jews with
rods of elmwood, each one of the 1875 strokes
bringing the blood Look at Paul's face and
look at his arms. Where did he get those
bruises! | think it was when he was strug
Cling ashore amidst the shivered timbers of
the ShipwreCk. i see q cash in Paul's side.
Where did he get that! think he got that
IN the tussel with highwaymen, for he had
been in peril Of robbers and he had money of
his own. He was mechanic as well as an
apostle, and ] think the tents he made were
as good as his sermons.
There was wanness about Pauls looks
What makes that! / think part of that
came from the fact that he was for
twenty-four hours on q plank in the
Mediterranean sea, suffering terribly, be-
lively; II was n night and day in the
deep" Oh, worn out, emaciated old
man! surely you must be melancholy,
No constitution could endure this and be
cheerful. But press my way through the
prison until come ND close to where he is,
and by the faint light that streams through
the opening see on his face a supernatural
Joy, and I bow before him, and l say:
Aged man, how can you keep cheerful
amidst all this gloom:' His voice startles
the darkness of the place as he
cries out; II am now ready to be
NE npnI p,,It lo4 e i 4
hand" Hank! what is that shutting of feet
in the upper dungeon. Why, Paul has an
invitation to a banquet, and he is going to
dine today with the king. Those
shutting feet are the feet of the execu-
TONERS They come, and they cry down
through the hole of the dungeron: Hurry
ready" Why Paul was ready. He had
nothing to pack up. He had no baggage to
take: He had been ready a good while.
see him rising up, and Strengthening out
his stiffened limbs, and pushing back his
white hair from his creviced forehead, and
| see him looking up through the hole in the
execution, and hear him say: II am
now ready to be offered, at the time of
my departure is at hand" Then they lift
him out of the dungeon, and they start
with him to the place of execution. They
say: "Hurry along, old man, or you will
feel the weight of our spear. Hurry
along Show far is it," says Paul, 1--WE
have to travel" Three miles" Three
miles is good way for an Old
whipped and crippled with mall
treatment. But they soon get to the place
of execution-Acquae Talvia-and he is
fastened to the pillar of martyrdom. 1t
does not take any strength to tie him fast.
He makes no resistance. q Paul! why
NArt., c,L Ia,r -
many friends here With that withered
hand just launch the thunderbolt of the peo-
pie upon those infamous soldiers. MOI Paul
was not going to interfere with his own coro-
nation. He was too glad to 60 see him
looking up into the face of his executioner,
Paul calmly says: 81 am now ready to be
offered, and the time of my departure is
at hand" But / put my hand over my
eyes / want not to see that last struggle
One sharp, keen stroke, and Paul does go t.
the banquet and Paul does dine with tn
King.
What a transition it was! From tn
malaria of Rome to the finest climate il
all the universe-the zone of eterna
beauty and health, His ashes were pu
in the catacombs of Rome, but in on
moment the air of heaven bathed from
his soul the last ache From shipwreck
from dungeon, from the biting pain of tn
the headsman, he goes into the most brillian
assemblage of heaven, a king among kings
multitudes of the sainthood rushing out an,
stretching forth hands of welcome for l d
really think that as on the right hand of Go
is Christ so on the right hand of Christ
Paul, the second great in heaven.
He changed kings likewise. Before tn
hour of death and up to the last momen
he was under Nero, the thick necked, tn
cruel eyed, the filthy Tipped; the sculpture
features of that man bringing dow
to us to this very day the horribl
possibilities of his nature seated as h
was amidst pictured marbles of Egypt
under a roof adorned with mother c
pearl, in dining room, which by ma
chinery was kept whirling day and nigh
with most bewitching magnificence: hi
horses standing in stalls of solid gold, an
the grounds around his palace lighted q
night by its victims, who had been daube
with tar and pitch and then set fire to
lumine the darkness. That was Paul
king. But the next moment he goes into I'll
realm of Him whose reign is love, an
whose courts are paved with love, an
whose throne is set on pillars of love, an
whose scepter is adorned with jewels {
love, and whose palace is lighted wit
xrb Sc to =